Tarot card reading

Reading tarot cards is a sort of cartomancy in which the practitioner makes use of tarot cards in order to ostensibly obtain insight into the past, present, or future. Tarot card readings have been practised for centuries. They first come up with a question, then pick cards to see how the answers should be interpreted. The 78 cards that make up a standard deck of tarot may be divided into two categories: the Major Arcana and the Minor Arcana. Together, these categories are known as the Tarot. Playing cards with a French suit may also be utilised; in fact, any card system in which suits are given to objects that can be identified can be employed (e.g., air, earth, fire, water).

A Dominican preacher who delivered a sermon against dice, playing cards, and "triumphs" around the year 1450–1470 is credited as providing one of the oldest allusions to tarot triumphs. Throughout the 16th and 17th centuries, there are references made to the tarot being a social plague or, alternatively, that it was immune from the restrictions that afflicted other games. Despite these references, there is no evidence that the cards were used for anything other than playing games.

The notion that the cards had occult powers was widespread in early modern Europe and was fostered by famous Protestant Christian priests and Freemasons. The belief that the cards have a divinatory significance is strongly related with the belief that the cards have occult properties. Court de Gébelin was one of those individuals (see below).

Following its use in 18th-century France as a tool for divination, the tarot went on to be utilised in hermeneutic, magical, mystical, semiotic, and psychiatric activities. It was used by Romani people when telling fortunes, as a Jungian psychological apparatus capable of tapping into "absolute knowledge in the unconscious," as a tool for archetypal analysis, and it was even used as a tool for facilitating the Jungian process of individuation. All of these uses can be found in its history.